Birthplace

Education

He left school at 16 due to his father's illness (his explanation) or because he rebelled against the discipline of school life (as one biographer put it).

Other jobs

Baker, bookseller and writer on a local paper in Liege. In Paris he was office clerk for a rightwing author and secretary to a wealthy aristocrat, the Marquis de Tracy.

Did you know?

Simenon was born on Friday February 13 but his superstitious mother registered his birth as being a day earlier.

Critical verdict

Simenon was a hugely prolific writer, able to pen a novel in a matter of days (which was fortunate, as he also had to fit in sleeping with 10,000 women, or so he claimed). He wrote over 400 books, which has undoubtedly affected his critical standing. While some of his work clearly suffers from haste, his reputation is currently undergoing something of a renaissance as critics rediscover not only the Maigret novels which made his name but also the books he regarded as his more serious works - taut psychological thrillers and sexual and domestic intrigues. Simenon's books focus on the tensions that lead a person to an extraordinary act such as murder. Through Maigret, who works primarily from intuition rather than procedural techniques, Simenon explores the psychology of his protagonists. The focus on people and setting is emphasised by the extremely spare language which is a feature of all his work.

Recommended works

English crime writer and critic HRF Keating awarded Simenon three places in his 1987 survey of the 100 best crime and mystery books. Two are from his Maigret series - My Friend Maigret (1949) and Maigret in Court (1960). The third is a 'serious' novel, The Stain on the Snow (1948). The recently reissued psychological thriller The Blue Room, about a couple whose torrid affair leads to double murder, is also considered one of his best.

Influences

As a schoolboy he devoured Dumas, Dickens, Balzac, Stendhal, Conrad and Stevenson. In terms of plot, life itself was perhaps his greatest influence - he said that he was incapable of making anything up, and frequently used real names, people and places in his books.

Now read on

Try Chandler for an American view of the detective novel, and any of the writers from the 'golden age' (Christie, Sayers) for a British slant on the murder-mystery. Patricia Highsmith is perhaps his closest counterpart in the field of psychological crime.

Adaptations

More than 40 films have been adapted from Simenon's books, but only 15 are based on the Maigret novels. The latter include Jean Renoir's La Nuit du carrefour (1932) and Jean Delannoy's Maigret tend un pi¿(1957). Films based on Simenon's 'serious' novels include Henri Decoin's Les Inconnus dans la maison (1941) and Pierre Granier-Deferre's La Veuve Couderc (1971).